


Collateral

by Fibonaccii



Category: Batman (Comics), Batman - All Media Types, Nightwing (Comics)
Genre: Angst, Gen, Hurt No Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-01
Updated: 2017-06-01
Packaged: 2018-11-07 14:42:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,628
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11061138
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fibonaccii/pseuds/Fibonaccii
Summary: Richard has been taken. Damian has to save him. He has to.





	Collateral

They should have let Damian come on the mission.

It’s all Damian can think, over and over again.

“Come on, Grayson.” He says aloud. “Quit being a fool and get up.” He tries to make his voice commanding and full of authority, but it’s a lost cause. He sounds too much like the eleven-year-old child he is. Grayson does not get up. They should have let Damian come on this mission.

Grounded from patrol—what a stupid idea. Criminals don’t get _grounded,_ and taking Damian off patrol was a dumb risk—he can _help._ It was a wonder the family ever got by without Damian before, and it was clear now that leaving him behind tonight had been a grave mistake.

“Grayson.” Damian says, a little more frantically, as he puts his hand on the side of the man’s face. “ _Grayson._ Richard!” Damian’s hand moves to Richard’s neck, feeling for a pulse. Panic is beginning to set over the boy. He should have been able to tell from the awkward angle Richard’s body was splayed on the ground—spread-eagled—but he refuses to believe his eyes. Richard does _not_ just _fall_.

This whole mission was a mess. Damian had been on coms, and he heard every bad turn as they occurred. First off, it’s never a good omen when the Joker is involved, and Damian should have disobeyed orders right then and there when they realized who they were up against. Maybe then Damian would not be leaning over Richard now, searching for a pulse that is all too absent.

It all really spiraled downhill when Joker gassed the group, throwing every ones’ balance off. Once he managed that, then things became all too easy for him. One of the Joker’s goons landed a solid hit on Drake, and when Richard whirled around to help him, the goons took advantage of that to inject Richard with a paralyzing agent that rendered the acrobat incapacitated. After that, things dissolved into chaos. The result was the capture of Drake and Richard. Damian blamed Drake. If he had not been so weak as to distract Richard, the Joker never would have gotten the jump on his brother. It mostly was luck that the Joker had captured the two, as is.

By this point, Damian was growing irate. The fools had allowed themselves to be captured, by the Joker, no less, and when Bruce was away on JLA business. Damian was going to have to rescue them, though he wouldn’t have _had to_ if they just had brought Damian on the mission in the first place. So, Damian planned and went. When he arrived, he saw an unpleasant scene in front of him. The Joker was operating from within a large, multi-level warehouse. There was an area where a loft from the top floor looked all the way down—five stories—to the very base level. It was here that Damian found his family strung up, hanging by manacles on their wrists over the large, deadly drop. Both boys seemed to still be under the influence of whatever they had been injected with, as they were limp and still. There were crude devices strapped to their chests, purpose unknown, but Damian was certain it wasn’t good.

The Joker was at the top level, already engaged in battle. Damian was annoyed, again, by the fact that someone had gotten here before him. They should have let Damian come on this mission. A flash of red hair and a black and yellow uniform told Damain that it was Barbara, the girl who dared to wear his father’s symbol and title.

The Joker, dodging another one of Barbara’s batarangs, saw Damian at the ground level.

“Aww, another bird brat!” he sang. His voice turned nasty. “Come on, Bats! How many of your little pawns are you going to send before you come and dance? You’re going to leave me with no choice—” no choice to what, Damian never found out, because Barbara shut him up with a swing to the jaw. The villain stumbled back a step, and Damian readied his grappling hook. _No time to waste with stairs. Got to get Richard down._ The Joker rubbed his jaws, signature grin gone.

“You kids are no fun. I’m done playing with you.” He whipped out a remote, and clicked a button with lighting speed. “No need for you to _hang_ around.” He said with a manic cackle. A whirring filled the space, and too late Damian realized what it was.

First, the devices on Richard and Drake’s chests power up, a loud crack sounding through the air. Then, the chains holding Drake and Richard up suddenly detached from the ceiling, and they began to fall.

“No!” Barbara’s voice filled the space. Simultaneously, she dove off the edge towards the closest body- Drake- and Damian fired his grappling gun. It pulled him up to meet Richard ten feet off the ground, but by then he was going a good, fast speed. Damian tried to grab onto his brother, but Richard’s momentum was too great. However, Damian refused to let go, rather losing his grip on his grapple and plummeting the final ten feet back down with his brother.

The ground was hard and unforgiving. Damian’s shoulder took the brunt of the fall, and something definitely broke with a sickening crack as he and Richard hit the floor. Collarbone, maybe? He also had whacked his head pretty hard. He was probably concussed. Either way, it hurt like hell. But, pain meant he was alive, so that was something. Damain rolled with a groan, looking up. There, Barbara had managed to catch Tim, and was holding him two stories up, grappling gun wrapped around a rafter. They would be fine, but either way, Damain was not focused on Drake. No, the man lying next to Damian was far more important.

“Grayson.” Damian groaned, turning to him. He didn’t respond. “Grayson!” Damian repeated, more urgently. He crawled to the man’s side, body protesting any movement with sharp pain. Damian ignored it.

Grayson was still not responding, and Damian was beginning to feel frightened. _They should have brought me on this mission._

And so now Damian sits, hands feeling Nightwing’s chest for his heartbeat. The smell of electricity is thick around Richard’s body—the device had electrocuted them.

“Come on, Grayson. Quit being a fool and get up.” _Can’t feel a heartbeat._ “Grayson. _Grayson._ ” Barbara is still trying to deliver Timothy to safety, but Damian knows she is watching.

“Richard!” _No pulse, no pulse, come on Richard!_ Damian forgets his injuries; he only has room for Richard, the man who is lying unnaturally still on the warehouse floor. He does not pay attention to the Joker- he barely even hears the man’s guffaws as he makes his escape. All Damian can think about is Richard, as still as death in front of him.

_Not like this. You don’t get to leave me like this!_ Damian gets into position to begin CPR. His hands are so small on Richard’s too-still chest. Damian wonders if he is even making a difference. A choked cry sounds from his mouth, and he doesn’t realize what he’s saying, until Barbara lands at his side.

“Help! Please, help me!” Damian doesn’t think he’s every called for help before in his life, but for Richard, Damian has done many things he would never have done before. Damian completes his breathing into Richard’s lungs. Barbara gently but firmly pushes him aside, and takes over. _Good. She has more experience with this kind of thing._ Damian’s pride doesn’t even feel the sting. He has no thought that doesn’t have to do with Richard. Richard, who still isn’t breathing. No blood seeps from any wound, but Damian suspects with a grim heart that Richard’s neck had been snapped in the fall and his heart stopped by the shock. _No. No. He couldn’t have. Richard will be okay. He cannot die now, he simply can’t. Not now, Richard. Come on, Richard!_ After a few minutes, Barbara sits back with tears running down her cheeks. She doesn’t say a word. She doesn’t have to.

Damian falls to his knees at Richard’s side. He thinks maybe he is crying, but he can’t really tell because the loud roaring in his ears is terribly distracting. The warehouse seems to shift and warp in the corners of his vision. Richard is gone. And the man who killed him is getting away.

Any grief that Damian feels rising up turns to white-hot rage. The Joker did this. How dare he take his brother away? He’s going to pay. He’s going to pay, _now._ Damian springs up, moving faster than ever before. He is up to the roof in seconds, drawing his katana. Bruce would disapprove, but right now Damian has never been gladder that he brought it. The Joker has climbed into a helicopter, and is closing the door as it rise up in the air.

With a vengeful scream ripping from the center of his body, pain forgotten, Damian launches himself at the copter, re-firing his grappling gun at the vehicle. It gains purchase, but before Damian can get closer, the Joker leans out, and with a wink that fills Damian with more rage than he has ever felt, cuts the line.

Damian crumples to the rooftop, no longer finding the strength in himself to move. Richard is dead, and the man who killed him is escaping, and Damian has done nothing to stop this from happening. He has failed in his mission, and Richard is dead. The pain Damian had been ignoring before suddenly becomes too much, and blackness erodes his vision.

_Richard is dead._

_Dead._

_Gone. Forever._

_Come back, Richard!_

Nothing. Blackness.

_Dead._


End file.
